Television Goes Digital

NOV 01, 1999

The new technology is bringing images of unprecedented clarity into our homes by exploiting the existing bandwidth and pushing signal‐to‐noise ratios almost to their theoretical limits.

DOI: 10.1063/1.882883

Louis A. Bloomfield

Once upon a time, entertainment meant getting out of the house for an evening at the movies, a trip to the ballpark, or a visit to the concert hall. But eventually entertainment followed us home and settled itself in our living rooms and dens. Community life has never been the same since. And although we may lament the isolation and loss of shared experience that have accompanied this boom in home entertainment, it’s hard not to admire the science and technology behind it.

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References

1. A. M. Noll, Television Technology: Fundamentals and Future Prospects, Artech House, Norwood, Mass. (1988).
2. J. C. Whitaker, DTV: The Revolution in Digital Video, 2nd ed., McGraw‐Hill, New York (1999).
3. Zenith Corp’s technical papers on high‐definition television, available on the Web at http://www.zenith.com (click on “HDTV” and then on “Technical Papers”).

More about the authors

Louis A. Bloomfield, University of Virginia.